Posts Tagged ‘ICBC’
Are insurance rates soaring across BC?
Scenes like this are all too common in BC and take a tragic toll in lives lost and families destroyed. The cost is high and we all pay but are Insurance Rates out of control in B.C.? Check out this article, as you may be surprised to see where British Columbia sits in relation to other Provinces.
This article is brought forward following an article in the Saanich News stating ICBC rates for some classes of vehicle are grossly inflated as compared to Alberta.
Update: August 20, 2019.
A further article debunks the statement that ICBC rates are soaring and that they are among the highest in Canada: BC News Outlets Exaggerated the Costs of ICBC Insurance
Update: August 13, 2019.
A Global News broadcast this afternoon quoted heavily from an article prepared by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, an Ontario based private enterprise organization which promotes private insurance, which states BC has the highest auto insurance rates in Canada and that rates could be lowered through ‘competition’. There was also an article in the Saanich News which similarily quoted the IBC information and also indicated ICBC is facing a huge deficit. The article made no mention of the considerable sums of money the government has removed from Crown Corporations such as ICBC and BC Hydro.
I have reached out to friends in the Auto Insurance industry to have them fact check the calculations I quote in order to insure they have legitimacy. (Updated August 14, 2019)
Original Article: (January 29, 2018)
The Apocalypse Now Narrative
While I do not subscribe to a “fake news” narrative, it seems newspaper reporters often pick the worse possible narrative and treat that as if it was the only fact. That is what is now happening with respect to insurance rates in BC where private providers have been fighting the public system, ICBC, for years.
One headline reads, “Drivers facing rate hike as ICBC deficit is expected to hit $1.3 billion” (Vancouver Sun headline, January 29). Other BC News outlets carry a similar doom and gloom narrative about looming debt and rate increases. (note this link became broken for some reason).
I do not argue ICBC faces a deficit, for reasons noted below, but would it surprise you British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba (the three provinces with public auto insurance) are among those with the lowest rates in Canada? Who has the highest? Alberta and Ontario. Alberta is about $1100 per year higher than BC and Ontario, at $5,500 per year, about three times higher. Now to the ICBC debt.
Over the last several years, the provincial government (under the Liberals aka Conservatives) transferred millions from the Corporation into general revenue. It was one means of making the corporation look bad while helping the Liberals to try and balance the books. Following are just two of news reports which soundly criticize the practice. In effect, the Conservatives have constantly placed the Corporation in lose-lose position vis a vis their customers. Now the rate comparisons among the Provinces.
Times Colonist (August 2016)
Global National (August 2016)
Some years back the BC government attempted to raid the BC Pension Corporation of a multibillion-dollar fund in the same manner, but an uprising among pensioners and other interested parties help to thwart that attack. By having all that money transferred to an ‘unfunded liability’ of the government you can only imagine the disaster that would have become. Today, those reserve pension funds are among the largest in Canada and growing hourly.
Now to the ICBC situation.
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